Mothering Mama Teresa

We have been asked not to come to the orphanage or the hospital on Saturday or Sunday. Essentially we have no rights to see or be with the children until after we have been to court. Right now we are allowed to be with them because we are with either the Director or the Doctor both of whom are not working this weekend.

I’ve been too entertained. Teresa is usually in charge in most situations. When we were at the orphanage we were getting ready to leave and the director asked Teresa where her scarf was. It seems it was too cold to be outside without a scarf and having her coat buttoned all the way up. Teresa said she had left it at the hotel. The director offered to loan Teresa a scarf. We finally managed to convince her that Teresa would survive the walk to and from the Taxi.

For Internet access I go to the lobby of our hotel and have a hard wire connection. Teresa walked out to see what was going on and the lady at the front desk pointed at her feet and walked her back to the room to put her slippers on. Socks are not acceptable for walking down the hall.

We have been disruptive at the orphanage. All the kids want to see what new activity Teresa has brought for the boys to work on. So we have been moved from the game room/gym to the computer lab. In the lab we have been given little pieces of carpet to sit on. Teresa always seems to be off her carpet when the director checks in on us and gets scolded and told to sit here.

The director really is good hearted and cares deeply for the kids. We were entertained by one little thing. It may just be our perception but when we brought Jim King Ministries newsletter that we had printed out it seemed that she did not want to ask if it was for her to keep or if we wanted it back. It was carefully moved and covered in a stack of papers. We had printed it for her and are glad that it was meaningful to her.

We have picked names for the boys and our paperwork was completed and notarized. As soon as we get word back from the State Department for Adoption in Kyiv we should be able to get our court date.

Thank You Jim King Ministries

Some of our friends and family have asked about helping the orphanage.
The simplest way can be found at the sponsors of this orphanage.

http://www.jimking.org



They have done an outstanding job of creating, staffing and funding this orphanage.

If you want to see the orphanage web page itself

http://www.houseofjoy.com.ua

We don't want anyone to feel pressured but did want to honor those who have helped our boys. This page is in Russian but if you look in the top right hand corner and click on the letters En it will convert the page to English

"Da" (Yes) It's Really Thanksgiving Part 2

Teresa here:

First we want to apologize to those who have been waiting to hear more information about the kids. This week we have been on an emotional roller coaster ride.
After we got off the train, Monday, we had an hour ride to a small town called Kahovka. This town is on the Dnipro River. In fact the hotel we are staying in is a little more than a block from the river. The even more interesting thing about the town is our translator, Oksana, grew up in this town. Our hotel is across the street from her school and about three blocks from where she lived. She said it hasn’t change in twenty five years.

The first thing that happened when we got to town is to visit the inspector for this area. In this meeting we were told “Dennis said “NO” to two foster parents. In case you are not aware of the rules here, at the age of eight or nine the child has to give their consent to an adoption. The inspector said it will be our job to convince Dennis, who is nine years old, that he wants us as his parents. She did give some encouraging word by saying she liked us but didn’t like the foster parents. About 3 hours later we were on our way to the orphanage. We were also instructed not to tell the boys why were there for the first meeting.

The orphanage was in the middle with apartment complexes all around. We were escorted to the Orphanage Director’s office by the Inspector and Oksana (translator). In there we were told the names of children, why parental rights were terminated, their birthdays, and the health of the children. We were told again that Dennis had said “NO” to two foster families. We were allowed to ask a few questions. We were also told Vitali (five years old) was in the hospital and had been there for about 1 week.

We were given a few minutes to get ready to meet Dennis (nine years old) and Sergei (seven years old). They were very quiet at first. We had a small beach ball and got Dennis to get on the floor with us to play with the ball but Sergei would not leave the table. After a few minutes, I went up and played with Sergei with some cars and a loader. I showed him how he could lift the cars with the loader. Before it was over we had both of the boys on the floor playing. They have such great smiles. They left the room but were back in about 10 minutes. Dennis was asked if he wanted to see the pictures we had brought. He said “NO, I do not want to be adopted.” Our hearts were overwhelmed. Everyone decided to give them some time to spend with us and see if that changes his mind.

Tuesday we got to go to the hospital and see Vitali. He had so much fun with us. He called us him American Mama and Papa. Soon after we left the Hospital he asked the doctor to call his American Mama and Papa to come visit him tomorrow. The doctor, Maria, has been very wonderful and let us visit Vitali every day. She said we have given Vitali the emotional support to help him get well. He is such a great boy. He loves to laugh, play ball, get hugs, and pull Papa’s ears.

Sergei is quiet but loves toys. Dennis said Sergei would say “yes” to whatever as long as toys were involved. He loves playing with transformers, building small Lego sets, and wants to try anything that has to do with snow (like skiing, snowboarding, and Sledding). Oh, my I guess I get to go to the mountain and get cold and wet. OH, BOY!!! I can’t wait.

Dennis is a very caring and responsible young man. He loves taking pictures with the camera. After we showed him how to make video clips he decided to make all the unusual sounds that boys seem to like making. I guess no matter what country the boys are from, they all like to make the same sounds. OH, MY I guess I have moved to Mars for life. Don’t tell Jim but I am glad I have moved to Mars. The boys have snatched my heart.

The authorities decided that Thursday was it. Dennis would have to give his decision or it would be finished. None of the boys will go with us if Dennis says “NO.” Thursday at 3 o’clock will be the deciding moment. The emotions were overwhelming. They are great boys and I pray that the answer will be “YES”. Both Dennis and Sergei were brought to the Director’s office and in front of the Director, Supervisor, Oksana, Jim, and I. They were asked a lot of questions which I am not sure what all of them were. What was the most important was the answer to only one question. IT IS “YES”. THEY WANTED TO GO TO AMERICA WITH US!!! I really don’t think I would have handled it well if they had say “NO.”

God answers pray in very unique ways. To me this is amazing. Most of you that know us, know we have been working on this for about 2 ½ years. We could never figure out why it was taking so long when there were so many children. The boys have been in an orphanage for 19 months. (Children have to be on a registry for 14 months before they are even available for international adoption.) Then if Dennis had said “YES” to any foster parents they would not be available for international adoption. And if that is not enough Dennis said “YES” to go to a country where they have never been and we use a different language which they really don’t know. The boys fit our family so well (Rabbit Ears and all.) This really makes me know “God takes care of us; all we have to do is trust.”

“DA” – Now it’s really Thanksgiving

We met with the orphanage director, the inspector (Probably about the equivalent of head of a county department of social services in the states), the two older boys and our translator. The boys were asked if they wanted to be adopted and go with us to America. And they both said “DA”

We haven’t written much over the last few days because there is a lot more to the story. But for now for us it really is Thanksgiving.

And this story is: To be continued

Electronics, Tools and Toys

For those of you who are about to make this journey we have decided to talk about what has worked for us and what hasn’t. First get a Ukrainian cell phone. They are very cheap. The total for the cell phone itself and about 150 minutes was $64.00. In this plan you get free incoming calls and free calls to anyone else with the same company.

The second thing that I would do is get a Skype account for online phone calls. If you are calling computer to computer there is no charge. We decided to get US phone numbers for our family and work to be able to call us for free. These accounts cost $15.00 for each line for three months. In addition we set up the account so that when we are on the computer we can answer the phone and those call cost two cents per minute. When we log off the computer we set Skype to forward the calls to our Ukrainian cell phone. These calls cost about 15 cents per minute. In our opinion that is worth it to have the support of our families. With this you will need a headset that also has a microphone.

We brought a laptop but you can use internet cafes. They are plentiful even in small towns. If you are not bringing a laptop go to an internet cafe once you have your cell phone and forward your Skype account to your new number.

It’s heavy, it was the one thing at customs at the airport that got lots of questions but we have used our 500 watt converter many times. We got ours through Magellan’s travel magazine. Not the least expensive place to buy one but it is good quality.

I’d also say don’t bring your blow dryer or curling iron (Teresa disagrees) these will not work unless you have the above converter. And for the $12-15 each I’d buy them here. Fox Mart carries them but is a little more expensive than at something like a hardware store. Teresa just didn’t like the time and effort it took that was also the day I ran the hot water out of the shower before she got one. Our current hotel has a blow dryer just like many in the US would. Most adoptive parents seems to rent apartments rather than at a hotel. Generally this is a better way to go. But in the small town we are in the hotel seemed the better option.

If you are bringing lots of electrical items get 2-4 of the little adapters. These are not converters but seem to work well at charging electric razors, cameras, ipods, mp3 players and computers. Most laptops are built to handle electrical current worldwide.

Do get a little hand held camera/video recorder. The one we bought was about $120 plus we bought a 4 gig card for extra memory. We can record about two hours of video plus thousands of pictures. It really is no bigger than your fist. I hadn’t been shopping for a while and was shocked at the size and quality that is now available.

Being a tech junkie I brought an external hard drive to store all the pictures on. It is probably over kill but I like it. And it takes a small amount of space and weight compared with much of what my wife brought.

We also bought some devices called empower that are supposed to work in the handle of many planes so that you are not operating on batteries until they go dead on the flight. The plane that we were on was older and did not have these even though the airline had assured us that it would when we called them.

The last items are probably not needed but we are justifying it by calling them scream insurance for the trip home, a personal DVD player with a ten inch screen. We also ordered some Russian language DVD’s, some online and others at the Russian bookstore in Denver. Mostly cartoons.

We brought at least five set of earphones/earbuds. Several splitters so that multiple people can watch either the DVD or Computer together.

Several of the USB/Camera cables, always have a backup in my opinion.

We also brought a small color printer (3 inches high by 6 inches deep by 12 inches wide, loaded the computer with plenty of games and clip art/coloring books that can be printed out each day for the kids. It also makes it possible for us to print out an additional copy of any item in our dossier. We had this advice from a family that traveled about four years ago. They said don’t tell any official that you are making a copy, just tell them that you left it at the motel/apartment and go print it out. This won’t work on items that were apostilled with a raised seal.

We also brought a variety of paper in a box about the size of a ream of paper. Labels for the photo albums, picture quality paper as well as plain white. Many of these are available just in slightly different sizes.

And we also bought a small scanner that is just barely 9 inches wide and about the size of four pencils wrapped together. With this any of the documents that we are transporting but not allowed to keep we will have for the kid’s records later in life.

I’m not advocating doing anything illegal. Just hoping to speed things along and keep all records for when the kids have questions when they are older.

I’ll post pictures of these items in our attached photo album.

So much to say and no words

The title is both when we try talking with the boys and for writing tonight. We met with the youngest at the hospital. He seems to be nearly over his Pneumonia. Teresa brought a number of items for him to play with. The banana was downed quickly but the big hit seemed to be the finger puppets. All three of the boys seems to be well adjusted considering what they've gone through. We were allowed more time at both the hospital and the orphanage than we had been promised yesterday. This orphanage is one of the smallest and they have never done an international adoption before. The director is very much loved by the kids. While we were at the hospital one of the other girls from the orphanage saw the director and came running for a big hug. The orphanage is sponsored by a Jim King from Oklahoma and is well maintained on the inside. It also means that Americans are appreciated for helping the orphanage. We have brought fruit and sweets but the boys are not very hungry. That is a good thing. They have been well cared for it terms of food for the last year and a half.

All the boys have their own personality and it is starting to show. We bought robots for them to put together. Something like Legos. We working on building them and Teresa asked if he wanted the instructions he told her to keep them he just wanted the blocks. The room we are allowed to play with the boys in has windows on two sides and we had an audience with half the kids looking in just before it was time for supper.

We are already starting to fall in love with the boys. I am probably not keeping a straight line of thought tonight but here it is anyway.

Train ride and orphanage visit

We had a safe comfortable 12 hour train ride from Kyiv to Kherson. The sleeping compartments are really pretty decent. And in the toilet reporting department they were not nearly as bad as had been described. They didn't even get messy on the floor until the last couple of hours.

We continue to be spoiled. Our hotel in Kakhovka is very nice. Full shower plenty of closet space a small refridgerator, satellite tv 300 plus channels but only 6 in English.

We met with two of the three boys and they are wonderful. The third boy is currently in the hospital with Pnemonia. We will get to see him in about an hour. The two older boys health and attachment to one another is excellant, they did want to make sure that their younger brother got some of the candy we brought for them. We blew up some beach balls to play and they quickly got the idea that it was okay to throw it at someone's head. Including Teresa and mine. Oops I probably started that one. The orphanage director took it well. That means she didn't send me home immediately.

There are a couple of items of concern with some of the oldest boys comments but at this point we hope and pray.

I'll write more tonight. Motel staff and I haven't figured out the wireless but they have a desk with hard wired connection in the lobby. I haven't been able to get on the office email account today.

More about our Appointment

Thursday when we had our appointment we were surprised to learn that our facilitator/translator could go in with us. Everything that we had heard/been told in the past was that the State Department for Adoption (SDA) wanted only their translators present with the parents.

We were shown into a small room with a table and a semi-circular couch on one side that we sat on and the SDA's social worker/Physcologist on the other side. Valentin our translator had a chair to right of the couch and their were two desks behind the social worker with computers on them. An additional SDA worker sat at one of the computers.

After asking us some brief questions about why we wanted to adopt and what kind of work we did they opened a binder with maybe 20 sets of siblings in it. We were a little disappointed that with as many kids needing families that none of the options in their book matched what we had requested. We had wanted at least one boy and one girl. There were only three groups of kids with any girls in them. One of those groups had five girls and a brother and our home study only approved us for a maximum of three. All of the groups had at least three siblings in them. We were never shown any smaller families. Mama Teresa was pretty happy with that part of things. Nearly all of the family groups had kids that were 11, 12 even 16 years old. We had requested kids between the ages of 2-8.

Each of the files had a photo of each of the kids. Most of the pictures were 2-4 years old. Some files would have written updates about the kids but most were just the original intake report. The reports would have 1-2 sentences about their medical condition. Another sentence or two about why parental rights had been revoked and not much more information.

After talking about nearly half the family groups we started narrowing the list down to two or three families. In the end we selected the group of three boys that we are going to visit. We had used the full hour and they were ready to have us out and the next family come in. They did call the orphanage director to see if there was any more information. The social worker was very pleasant and smiling but was not going to budge in terms of letting us look at any of their other books.

It is definitely a weird feeling to know that our lives and the lives of our kids will be based on that quick of a meeting and that little information. We were praying while looking but still felt unsettled as we left.

OH MY GOODNESS

Leave it to Jim to JUST show bathrooms when there are some great sights in Kyiv. That’s males, for you!!! They look at things so differently. I must be nuts because I will soon be out numbered in the house once again. Oh, well at least I have experience with Boys. All I know is they’re all nuts. Just like today Jim decided we should meet some other Adoptive Families in Independence Square and of course, we should take the Ukraine Metro where you go underground and can’t see where you are going and NO ONE speaks English. He is really nuts because the other day when we found the Metro he almost got in trouble with the guards because he was trying to go in the out door. He actually did great. We got tokens and went the correct direction. Not One Mistake. (But don’t tell him that, because it will go to his head.) It was actually great to get out and see others. Oh, by the way this is Teresa, the one who hates to write.

We met with our Facilitator, tonight and he gave us train tickets (Another Great Adventure with more bathroom experiences for Jim to Document) and the packet that allows us to see our kids. Well, we pray that they are ours. I am a bit nervous the oldest can say no, “I don’t like them” and that’s the end of that. When it comes down to it we really want our kids, whoever they are. We just have to trust in God. We leave Kyiv Sunday Night and will arrive in Kherson on Monday morning. Then we have about an hour or two driving to get to Kakhovka. There is a Power Plant in this city.

This whole trip, so far, has been an eye opening experience. So far the people at least most of them have been patient with Americans who don’t speak Ukrainian or Russian. They walk by you as if you are tied to a pole (Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere). Crossing the street is like taking your life in your hands (some cars stop but not all of them. There is no rhyme or reason, how you cross a street.). We follow behind a Ukrainian crossing the street (and he or she waves their bags just right and the cars stop.

Well, Jim thinks I am writing a book so I guess I better stop for now.

What we've been waiting for...

No not the squat toilet that Teresa got to use for the first time.

WE HAVE OUR REFERRAL

We will be traveling by train about 300 miles south of Kyiv on Sunday to Kherson and then about 50 kilometres to the orphanage. Oh yeah the WHO part of the question. There are three brothers we will be meeting with. This is not a done deal yet but we are very excited and hopeful. They are 5,7, and 9, years old.

Lost and Found

We've had some sleep and are almost starting to feel human again. When we went through customs they were really only unsure about one item. We bought a converter that will handle 500 watts. It has been worth the extra hassle. It runs the blow dryer and is the only converter that works with our little printer. (Um yes we are traveling light, yea right)

As I mentioned we got in early and waited a little for our driver. His name was Sergei and he had a sign with our name on it. As soon as we got settled in and had lunch I got the password for our secure wireless internet and logged on. Only to find that our facilitator said his driver was still waiting for us at the airport. Luckily our internet Skype phone worked and I was able to talk with him. It seems that our Pastor's friend here at the office decided that we needed a ride from the airport. Both driver's name is Sergei and both had signs with our name on it. I guess two rides are better than none. We owe Sergei big time for waiting around the airport for about three hours and talking the airline into confirming that we were on the flight.

Then we went shopping. Tried my Russian to purchase some banana's. Evidently I wasn't getting the numbers right. Finally both sides gave up trying and we left with a kilo for 10 Hyrvna. I think I ran the hot water out this morning and Teresa got a cold shower. Not a good way to start off to make a happy Mama. I also suggested that rather than bring her curling iron we just buy one here. One of the ladies from the office went with us looking for one and we were unsuccessful. Luckily this afternoon when we were walking I saw a store that looked like it might have one, it did and for only about $13. So I am now at least back to even in the score and a good husband again.

Here's a picture of our bathroom. As you can see it's tough and it has heated floors. Now Teresa has a new idea for when we get home. argh.

Safely in Kyiv

Just a quick note. We had an uneventful trip and are safe in Kyiv. The biggest surprise was our flight was about an hour early thanks to strong tail winds and we even cleared customs before our driver arrived.

We have been given a very warm welcome at the Union Conference office. Thank you very much Pastor Udo, it's great to have friends with connections. They fixed a great lunch of borsch, salad and mashed potatoes. The new rooms that we are staying in our less than a month old. We are the second people to have used them.

More later when I can think straight.

Packed and Dangerous

It's just a matter of hours now until we board our flight. About ten hours to be more precise. We are most dangerous to my poor arm muscles that haven't had a workout carrying this much weight in years. We had to take a few items out of two bags as they were each at 50 pounds. We are taking enough cords for cameras, computers and dvd players that I'm sure TSA will search us thoroughly.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishing and prayers.

63 Hours

Okay I'm really an accountant so we have now switched to hours rather than days. We have set up two phone numbers and a voice mail box on Skype. If you are in Denver or the Baltimore/Washington area these are local calls for you. We believe that when we get our Ukrainian cell phones that we can forward the calls from Skype to the cell phone.

Denver Area: 720-324-7950
Baltimore/Washington Area: 301-476-0927

Please notice the Kiev time gadget on this page.

Also our email address is now available in my profile.

Test Video

Test Video of Teresa's Office. Takes a little while to load but I think we will be able to show some videos. They won't be of the kids until after the 10 day waiting period after court.

If anyone has problems let us know and we will try to work out the details. If you are using dial up internet you probably won't be able to get the video. Sorry!

Countdown at 5

We've been really busy trying to wrap up all the loose ends of our jobs. Even our weekend was busy. Teresa is in charge of Children's church this happens once each month. We appreciate the team being willing to take this on while we are gone.

We very much appreciate all the encouragement from all our friends and family.

We also bought a new little HD video camera. I'll try posting a little video clip before we go. We have been playing with lots of toys and have decided to put more of our information here this weekend. We have added local phone numbers in both Denver and Maryland that will go to our Skype account and hopefully be forwarded to our Ukrainian cell phone.

I'll try to be a little more regular at posting. And hopefully Teresa will add a female perspective soon.

In the countdown 12 (Minor news America elected a President)

Well we are trying to wrap things up at all of our jobs and the pressure is probably starting to get to us a little. We are thankful for each item we can check off our list. About two years ago we got a new associate Pastor at church. He and his wife met and married in Ukraine. We are thankful for all the extra help he has been able to provide. They have been in the states for about 6 years now.

Yes, America elected a new President tonight. We are still more excited about our trip to Ukraine and meeting our kids. Okay, my candidate did not win. I'm sure my sister is happy about the results.

Also I've put a new picture in our profile. Needed a better picture of my beautiful wife.

Picture here just for a day or two.